Heavy Truck Crashworthiness

Truck crashworthiness research identifies the sources of harm in truck crashes in order to develop effective countermeasures to reduce that harm. Sources of harm include the aggressivity of trucks in crashes, because of the trucks greater mass, frame stiffness, and the geometric mismatch between trucks and most other road users; performance characteristics of some trucks such as greater stopping distances and lower rollover thresholds; and injuries to truck occupants in crashes. UMTRI researchers take a multidisciplinary approach in analyzing existing crash data, collecting additional crash data as needed, analyzing truck structural properties and dynamics, and evaluating the behavior of trucks in normal driving.